What is the Soul’s Contract?
This week, my brother Baruch HaLevi contributed the following piece in which he addresses the question, “What is the soul’s contract?” based on his understanding drawn from years of studying wisdom traditions. Please join us in the comments section with your thoughts.
A question I’ve always been interested in is, “What is the soul’s contract?” Although I draw many of my insights from Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), I am a student of all wisdom traditions and find that universal truths, like the soul’s contract, is found within many of these traditions. The soul’s contract is just that: a contract that you, or more specifically your soul, drew up, agreed to and entered into prior to your earthly incarnation. The soul’s contract began in the Astral Plane. It was drawn up based on past, present and future life experiences, challenges, tests, failures and successes. The purpose of existence is evolution, and the reason we incarnate is to grow. Our soul contracts this lifetime for the purpose of growth, period. And this world, the physical realm, as you are well aware, offers no shortage of opportunities for growth. In essence it is one big classroom with lesson after lesson after lesson waiting for us, from the day we enter this school until the final classroom bell.
Secrets of the Angels
Indeed, there is a beautiful text within the Jewish mystical tradition that illustrates this idea. According to the tradition, while we are in the womb, preparing to enter into our earthly incarnation, God dispatches a personal angel to essentially review the terms of our soul’s contract—a crash course if you will, before the big test begins. And just prior to birth, the angel finishes the prep work by placing a finger on the baby’s philitrum.I had no idea what a philitrum was either. It’s the little indentation under the nose. (And you just thought it was a funnel for toddler’s boogers!) But most importantly, the moment the angel touches the child, she whispers, “Shhhhhh, don’t tell.” In that moment all direct knowledge of the realm beyond, the secrets of the angels and the souls contract, are gone.
Free Will
This story is true regardless if it actually happens this way or not. After all, it explains a fundamental problem we have to answer: Why don’t we remember our existence prior to this lifetime? And why is that? Because, we are here to evolve and grow through whatever this life presents to us, and showing up already knowing the answers is hardly a formula for growth. We need free will, the ability to choose for ourselves, to confront our tests on our own, without any divine cheat-sheets.
It is also a reminder that we are not here alone, without connection to the angels, particularly our Guardian Angel. We are also here less to learn than to remember who and what we are. In so many indirect ways we have been given tools to connect, ways to communicate and vehicles to tap the wisdom of the soul, the spirits, the angels and the Divine. Or as I have come to think of our mission—to discover, uncover and release the divine sparks that are hidden within all of life’s experiences. These sparks are particularly buried within the darkness, especially within the darkest recesses of our hearts. We are here to become Spark Seekers, discovering the sparks of possibility, potential and power, gathering them, growing in light, as we illuminate the world’s darkness and fulfill our soul’s contract.
“You”
This is why you are here and your true profession. You are not a lawyer, doctor, teacher, marketing executive, administrative assistant or VP of this that or the other. You are not mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, American, Christian, agnostic, atheist or Jew. Those may be pieces of how you describe yourself. These may be aspects (and important ones) of how you define yourself or find direction or spend your time. But they are not “you.”
You are a soul.
Your work is to fulfill your soul’s contract.
Everything you need, you already have.
Everything you want, you already are.
Everything you’ll discover isn’t out there, rather it’s in here—in your head, in your heart and most of all, in your soul. You just have to look inwards to discover, or more accurately, uncover it. But if you truly want to find it my friend, you will find it.
This is who you are. This is why you are here. This is what you must do.